While the level of protection afforded Saudi Arabia in Washington is hardly a secret, the level of that support was on display this month when officials pushed the Obama Administration to release long-withheld pages from the 9-11 report, as we previously discussed. Those pages reportedly implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9-11 attacks. Saudi Arabia response with an express threat to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars of assets if Congress were to pass a bill allowing the Kingdom to be held liable for the attacks. One would think that the response would be outrage at the threat. After all, the bill would only allow citizens to sue and a bipartisan group of Senators have joined to support the 9-11 families. Saudi Arabia could still defend itself (and according to its government, vindicate itself) in a court of law. Of course, the United States has a real court system as opposed to the government controlled, Sharia “courts” used in the Kingdom to mete out medieval justice.
The Administration not only is staying silent about this insulting threat but is doing precisely what the Saudis are demanding in trying to block the bill. When push comes to shove between the victims or 9-11 and the Saudis, the choice appears clear.
So that there would be no mistake about the threat,
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month — threatening a sudden sell-off of $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets to cripple the economy. The rationale is to avoid the assets from being frozen by American courts. Interestingly, this assumes that you are likely to be found guilty of complicity in the worst terrorist attack in United States history. What is interesting is that the use of al-Jubeir seemed calculated to maximize the threat. The same message could have been delivered through leaks that the Saudis were preparing such a selloff for strategic reasons. The open threat was a serious miscalculation by the Saudis in my view. Few Americans would take the threat as anything short of a slap in the face of the victims of 9-11 and the country as a whole.
The Obama Administration is shrugging off the insult to our legal system by a country that violates every core principle of due process and civil liberties in their own country. Instead, it is suggesting that holding Saudi Arabia liable for American deaths could put Americans at legal risk overseas. Whatever the merits of the argument against the access to the courts for these citizens (and I would be very interesting to hear them), the Administration should have delivered a clear message that we do not respond to such threats, particularly when another country is balancing American lives against foreign investments.
What do you think?
One more thing: PATRIOT, you are anything but. Your ignorant bigotry and anti-Semitism are disgusting.
The bottom line is that the US government is in bed with the Saudis and it doesn’t matter which party controls the executive or legislative branches. Both are just as guilty of kowtowing to the Saudi tyrants in return for oil. Until the US no longer relies on fossil fuels as it does this will continue to be the case. It is sickening but true.
Karen S:
“GaryT – absolutely right. I have been so frustrated at Liberals claiming that our debt doesn’t matter….” Please do not generalize, as I recall it was DICK CHENEY (hardly a liberal) who said the debt did not matter, when he was spending like a drunken sailor on the second Iraq war.
Check it out!!!
Elmer and Patriot,
Your comments about tent heads, etc. seem designed to misdirect from the real issue at hand. We the people deserve to see those 28 pages.
The “war on terror” was the result of 9/11. We should be allowed to know the truth about who was involved in this attack. We see clearly that this attack was used to destroy our Constitutional rights. It has justified regime change and destruction of nations which had nothing to do with 9/11. It has been an amazing profit center for surveillance and other war based economic interests, including the banking industry.
Whether someone wears any kind of head covering, no matter what you with to call it, is completely irrelevant to the issue of failure to release the report to the people.
Tent plus the beard makes em look weird.
One tends to wonder about payoffs. So easy to arrange.
And don’t forget there’s no such thing as Islamic Extremism…even in a country where 4th Grade reading books instruct students to behead Christians.
Never trust anyone with a tent on their head.
Everybody knows the 9/11 Commisson Report is a 571-Page Zionist Lie.
Zionist Liar Philip Zelikow, primary author of 9/11 Commission Report, should be in prison.
The 9/11 Commission Report: An Elaborate Fiction
“The Report fails to mention the total collapse of 47-story steel-framed skyscraper Building 7 at 5:20 on the day of the attack.”
http://911research.wtc7.net/post911/commission/report.html
This looks like a Israeli / Zionist Jew red herring.
The Saudis need to point the blame for 9/11 in the direction where it belongs –> Israel & U.S. Traitors
http://nypost.com/2016/04/17/how-us-covered-up-saudi-role-in-911/
http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/09/11/classic-www-the-untold-saudi-royal-connection-to-911/
ZEN,
I think you make a very good point. The US and Saudi Arabia seem not to make any moves without consulting each other first. Tat report is being hidden from the American public. The Bush family has long standing ties to Saudi royalty/aristocracy including very close ties to many in the Bin Laden family. There is a reason why the Bin Laden family members were allowed to fly out of the US under an otherwise closed aviation system.
Obama has protected the Bush/Cheney administration at every turn. I truly believe that these 28 pages aren’t being released because it proves the US “war on terror” is a lie. If it were real, USG would have had to attacked Saudi Arabia instead of, or in addition to, all the other nations it has been making war on. As I wrote before, I do not wish the USG to attack Saudi Arabia or depose their leadership as it has done to so many other countries which had nothing to do with 9/11. But if all the claims made that USG needed to attack and depose everyone involved in 9/11, surely there should be cluster bombs and drone kills going on in Saudi Arabia, yet there are none.
In fact, the US continues to sell arms and nerve gas to the Saudi govt. so it an put down a movement for democracy in Bahrain. Clearly, this isn’t about terrorism or bringing democracy to other nations. It is about war profits, regime change, oil and the elimination of human rights along with our own Constitution. So far, mission accomplished.
We require that Presidential candidates be natural born citizens, to prevent foreign interests from gaining control of our country.
It appears that massive foreign investment has created the same result. China and UAE own such a large piece of our economy that we find ourselves making Machiavellian bargains to placate them. We ignore human rights violations perhaps a tic below the level of ISIS in Saudi Arabia because we need OPEC. We even sold the Kingdom a really excellent missile defense system because we really, really wanted its strategic position in the ME.
So here’s what we do. When ever anyone tries to blackmail you, you release the information yourself and weather the storm. Release the documents, let them pull the trigger on economic terrorism, and be done with it. We’ll have a very severe recession and an oil embargo. We’ll build the Keystone pipeline, which will provide jobs that will be like diamonds. We already transport the oil in trains and trucks. A pipeline would be safer. Although in today’s terrorist climate, we would have to install shutoffs throughout because eventually there will be a hit to our pipelines and utility grids. We’ll develop our domestic energy resources, get the rest of our oil from non-terrorist supporting nations, and put our backs into developing and refining clean renewables that are also cost effective.
GaryT – absolutely right. I have been so frustrated at Liberals claiming that our debt doesn’t matter. Not only have we allowed China and Saudi Arabia, both human rights violators, to become our bankers, but when we pay billions of dollars on interest alone, that is money that could have done good in the world. We could fix our roads, improve education, build Fort Knox after school play areas for kids in gang neighborhoods…the list just goes on for what we could have done with that money instead of throwing it away on interest payments.
We also need to have vigorous discussion on the implications of foreign nations buying up our debt, as well as business holdings in our country. Many other nations have measures against non-citizens buying property, businesses, or securities. Perhaps that will be one of the next strategies of terrorism, disrupting economies. So this is something we need to look at from all angles to protect ourselves.
You know a bunch of people with bunkers are saying, “I told you so!” I’d rather eat grasshoppers than roll over and allow Saudi Arabia to prevent our government from releasing information on its alleged involvement in 9/11 to its own people. I think a lot of people feel the same way. At least persevering through this recession would be a patriotic duty.
Perhaps the USGovt encouraged the Saudi’s to make the overt threat? Clearly the USGovt does not want the report made public or they would’t have redacted those pages to begin with. With pressure to fully disclose what undoubtedly would implicate Saudi involvement and possibly US security failures, or worse show US complicity, the two allies conspire together in a “good cop bad cop” shtick to ensure the inconvenient truth fails to see the light of day under the guise of protecting “national security.” Cui bono? The USGovt and Sauidi’s. Who gets screwed? Everyone else …as usual.
Well, it has been predicted before, but not exhibited in this spectacularly obvious and public way.
The public debt that everyone in power seems to think is not a big deal, the same one that they keep raising the limit for each year because the US is spending 1.3 times its income, is now being directly used as a extortionate threat from a foreign power to influence domestic policy.
And according the JT’s article, it appears to be working; now the debt is truly becoming a national security issue, but they are trying to sweep the significance of this under the rug, hoping no one will notice.
Building a way of life on borrowed money has never made sense. Those who hold our paper can wreck havoc on our economy at will. Over time, it will happen.
Longterm the savings in not fighting future oil-wars alone would more than pay for it.
The taxpayer cost of oil wars alone exceeds 750 billion. That hidden cost is also not included in the retail price of gasoline at the gas pump, but still paid by consumers and taxpayers.
If that cost were properly valued in a free market on the actual product – retail cost of gasoline – it would create an incentive to invest in much cheaper sources of fuel like wind and solar. Free market completion only works if the product or service includes all of the real costs.
(editor: Buena Vista Mall does not endorse violence, war or execution)
Dr. Alan Sabrosky former Director of Studies, professor of the U.S. Army War College;
Why The Military Knows Israel Did 9/11
https://youtu.be/kVKGRB3cygg
What’s the downside? In other words those assets will be cheaper for Americans living in the United States to buy instead of being foreign owned. It may also make us less likely to fight their oil wars in the future.
Why not release it all?
RB writes: “What’s the downside?” Well, US securities normally aren’t discounted when there’s a call to pay. $750B is what we in the taxed class would have to fork out. Probably the biggest downside, however, is from Saudi oil going elsewhere: the fiat dollar would end as the petrocurrency. There’s be no more printing valueless paper money to be traded in markets that wouldn’t accept it. That would send the US into a tailspin for those without a golden parachute. But I think it’s time for the adjustment.
Good post, Darren. We can adjust. Let them sell or let’s just freeze their assets if there’s a finding that 9/11 was Saudi-sanctioned attack.
Then send 43, Cheney, and Rumsfeld into exile in Saudi Arabia. Cheney and Dubya would look awesome decked out in cowboy boots and keffiyeh. Rumsfeld could spend his days knowing better his known unknowns. All could use some waterboarding as well as training in evidentiary clues to the presence of WMD. Bring it on! Mission accomplished!